The present invention relates to a television program guide in a subscriber television system and, more specifically, to allowing a user to quickly navigate within the program guide to an established reference point such as the program information associated with the last channel viewed and the current time.
In a subscriber television system, television services have traditionally included little more than an analog broadcast video source. Recently, however, digital programming has become a reality with the home communications terminal (xe2x80x9cHCTxe2x80x9d), otherwise known as the set-top box, becoming a powerful computing device for accessing video services, and navigating a user through the maze of available services. In addition to supporting traditional analog broadcast video and functionality, digital HCTs (or xe2x80x9cDHCTsxe2x80x9d) now also support an increasing number of services that are not analog, but rather digital; are not broadcast, but rather two-way communication as for example video-on-demand; and are not video, but are data such as e-mail or web browsers. These are all in addition to the host of other television services that are available to subscribers using DHCTs, examples of which include audio and audio/visual programming, advanced navigation controls, impulse pay-per-view technology, and online commerce to name but a few. There is an increase by several orders of magnitude of the services that are increasingly available in the digital world.
As more services and applications are provided, subscriber television systems are providing television program information to the HCT so that the subscriber can view the program information on the television itself. This program information has traditionally been organized for presentation purposes into a program guide format that presents the guide information by time and channel only. The program guides have been little more than grids with channel number and time presented on the x and y axes and the program information about the related programs within the grid. The program guide can, for instance, automatically scroll through the available television channels to present the program information, such as name and description, starting at the current time and for a set time range into the future, usually an hour and a half to two hours.
With the advent of program guide xe2x80x9cbrowsersxe2x80x9d, including interactive program guides (IPG), mini-guides, and browse banners for use in subscriber television systems, subscribers can linearly scan program information by time and channel while watching the tuned channel. In analog systems that offer a limited number of television channels, these browsers permit the subscriber to easily scan the available programs one-by-one in order of channel number. A subscriber can scan program information typically by using several buttons or keys on a remote control to scroll through the programs. Each press of the button or keystroke changes the selected guide channel or time by one unit. However, many digital subscriber television systems provide hundreds or even thousands of channels and several days or even weeks of programming information for each of the multitude of channels. In such systems, scanning program information sequentially can require hundreds of keystrokes by the subscriber and can consume tremendous amounts of time. Furthermore, locating a particular program can be quite difficult if the subscriber does not already know the channel number for the program for which they are searching.
In addition, traditional subscriber television systems have failed to provide the types of complex, graphically rich interactive program guide applications that are becoming popular with more sophisticated consumers of current digital systems. The operator of a subscriber television system needs to provide a program guide that is as user friendly as possible to encourage the subscribers to purchase, access, and use the additional programs and services they can locate through a program guide. To help make the guide as user friendly as possible, it would be beneficial for the subscriber to be able to easily navigate to an established reference point should they lose their way while navigating all the program information that is available in the program guide. Even with simple program guides a standard reference is useful and with more complicated and interactive program guides it becomes essential.
Thus in a user friendly subscriber television system program guide, there is a need for an efficient method and system that allows a user to quickly navigate within a program guide to an established reference point.